A Case of Two Cities

25

THE FOLLOWING MORNING PROMISED to be an easy one for Catherine, with the delegation scheduled for a visit to Washington University.

“You must have stayed up quite late,” Shasha said to her over breakfast. “Chen could be a romantic poet.”

Catherine smiled without giving a response. It was true that she had stayed up late last night. Back from the Central West End, she had a long discussion with Detective Lenich on the phone. He stuck to his theory of insider involvement. For such a hypothesis, Little Huang had to be somebody of secret significance. According to Chen, however, there was nothing to support that. She believed her Chinese partner and Lenich had not been that pleased with her inclination. Then she did more research on her laptop, late into the night.

When she finally went to bed, she read a couple of short poems in the collection Chen had given her.

It was a touching poem, but how could a Tang dynasty poet be so sure of someone far, far away missing him like that? That was the last fleeting, self-contradicting thought in her mind before she sank into a dreamless night.

When they arrived at Washington University, there was a group of Chinese-speaking staff and students assembled to welcome the delegation. They were quite eager to talk to the visitors in Chinese, so she didn’t have to interpret that much.

She didn’t have any opportunity to talk to Chen. At least he didn’t appear concerned now that he had studied Bao’s phone record. He talked with Bao in high spirits. He moved around like a fish in the water-at the university founded by Eliot’s grandfather. Chen took pictures of the bronze plaque indicating that at the front entrance. He was eager to find out more about Eliot, he declared. In contrast to the other delegation members, all of whom dressed formally, Chen wore a white jacket with the emblem of Washington University. It was a present given him by the dean of the Arts and Sciences school in return for a copy of his Chinese translation of Eliot. Chen had put the jacket on immediately.

Bao succeeded in finding a copy of his poems in the East Asian Library, and discussed them with an old professor who had studied Chinese poetry in the sixties. Shasha was radiant. Several students who had read her books gathered around asking for her signature. Peng started reading Chinese newspapers in the library. Some of the Taiwan and Hong Kong publications were not accessible on the mainland. Zhong was nowhere to be seen at first, but it was then reported he couldn’t tear himself away from the sound system of the university theater.

There would be a lunch reception in honor of the Chinese delegation around twelve. A lot of people were coming. Some from other schools, some from the local Chinese community. Chen was going to give a talk in the early afternoon. As Catherine started walking toward him, an old gray-haired American woman approached him first.

“Oh, you have come back, Professor Pu Zhongwei!”

“You-” Chen turned around in astonishment.

It was a mistake-an understandable one with his jacket bearing that emblem. As the old woman shuffled away with a profusion of apologies, Catherine felt a sudden chill pouring down her spine.

To some Americans, Chinese people must have looked more or less alike. If Chen had been taken by mistake here, the same could have happened to Huang outside of the hotel. So somebody else-Chen-could have been the real target. The murderer might have followed Huang out of Chen’s room and killed him without taking a close look.

It was not a likely mistake, but not unthinkable for a hired killer who knew nothing about Chen except his room number. Huang’s emerging out of Chen’s room, having taken a bath there, and then closing the door after him would have been enough. Huang, about the same height as Chen, actually bore a slight resemblance.

Thoughts came in somersaults across her mind, as Catherine stood transfixed there, watching Chen talk to American students about T. S. Eliot.

“A Chinese reader once told me that he quoted Eliot to impress his girlfriend because the poet was considered a modernist. Now a successful entrepreneur, he is trying to introduce the musical Cats to a Shanghai audience. He says he can make a huge profit of it, and he makes no mistake about making money…”

The murderer must have realized his mistake since then, she contemplated. So the effort would not be dropped. What had prompted him to strike in St. Louis, she didn’t know, but Chen’s investigation must have come close to hitting home. So Xing and his associates had to get him out of the way. With the cops on the scene, the murderer might be more careful, prowling in the dark, but still capable of striking out at any moment.

The police might do a good job of protection here, but there was no guaranteeing Chen’s safety elsewhere in the U.S., or back in China, as long as he persisted with the investigation. Nothing could help Chen except a fundamental change of the situation-in which the people posing the threat no longer had the capability or necessity to do so.

Chen moved on to talk with Professor Thurston of the Chinese studies department, she observed, about Ming and Qing short stories. She edged close to him. Chen tried to respond with the newest terms favored by the serious sinologist.

“I don’t know how to deconstruct a Chinese story, or how to read it in the light of New Historicism, but for a text formed in the process of passing it from one storyteller to another, generation after generation, some dissimilation would be imaginable in terms of re-creation through readers’ response.”

“You have put it well,” Professor Thurston said. “That’s why I’ve included a detailed bibliography in the anthology.”

“Oh, what’s up, Catherine?” Chen appeared relieved at the sight of her.

“People don’t need my interpretation. I think I’ll excuse myself for a couple of hours. Things are piling up on my desk, you know. I’ll come back for your reading.”

“Take your time.” Chen added, “It’s just a random talk about Eliot in China.”

“I’ll be back in time,” she said. “It’s your favorite topic. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Instead of going back to her office, however, she headed to her apartment, which was close to the university. Taking a shortcut through the overpass across Mallinckrodt Road, she walked fast. She nearly stumbled at the end of the staircase. She didn’t think she’d strained her ankle, but she slowed down, recalling what she’d experienced in a dusk-enveloped garden in Suzhou.

The moment she got to her place, she kicked off her shoes. Her ankle wasn’t swollen, but it hurt. She slumped onto the sofa. It wasn’t the time for a break, she told herself. So she got up and made a pot of coffee. Another habit picked up in his company.

She shuddered again at the possibility of Chen being the real target. There was a lot Chen might not have told her, and there were things Chen himself might not have known. But he must have considered this possibility too. She paced about the room, barefoot, on a wool rug brought back from Shanghai. Out the window, cars and buses rolled by like waves along the street, and people moved on, hurrying to their own destinations. All of a sudden, she wished that Chen could be one of them, walking toward her apartment at this moment. Perhaps she was still under the spell of a poem she had read last night.

But it was only the fluctuation of a fleeting moment, she knew. There was no possibility of his stepping back into her life like that.

Across the street, she saw an old couple standing by a red-painted newsstand, unfolding the newspaper, pointing, talking, and patting each other’s shoulder, so meaningful to themselves, but inaudible, incomprehensible to others. Distantly, it reminded her of a shadow play in the Forbidden City.

She took out the transcript of Bao’s phone conversation the first day in St. Louis. It made more sense now. The phone call was really about Chen.

What about the information she had about Xing? If she couldn’t make use of it, it could be the result of her insufficient background knowledge. These corruption cases in China were extremely complicated, involving high-ranking officials in a maze of connections.

Her mission was one of damage control, and among other things, it was her responsibility to prevent anything else from happening to the delegation, and to Chen. It would be in everyone’s interest for the conference to come to a conclusion without further incident. What she was going to do was justified, she decided, even from the perspective of her government.

She was ready to pass to Chen the information about Xing’s activity in the U.S. It wasn’t just for the sake of Chief Inspector Chen, she told herself, as she turned on the computer.

According to the CIA file, Xing had been making frequent phone calls to China. Aware of possible surveillance here, he spoke cautiously, both on his home phones and cell phones. What made those conversations difficult to decipher was his use of the local triad jargon. Also, he referred to his contacts by their nicknames, such as “Small Boss,” “Crocodile,” “Big Brother.” Who these people could possibly be, the CIA had no clue. Still, there were a couple of points the CIA interpreters underlined.

Xing had mentioned several times that his mother was worried about somebody, the “little boy,” still in China. Who this “little boy” was, the CIA failed to figure out. In one of the calls, Xing seemed to have lost contact with the “little boy,” and he asked about his whereabouts anxiously. After a number of phone calls, he must have got in touch with the “little boy” again.

Another point was Xing’s connection with the local triad. There were discussions about triad protection of Xing in L.A. Several nicknames were brought up in that regard, like “Black Shark” and “Little Tiger,” most of which sounded characteristic of those organizations. Still, in spite of the considerable amount paid for his personal protection, Xing hadn’t made any requests for an attempt against anyone else. In one of the highly jargonized conversations, the head of the local triad seemed to have mysteriously made contact, as Xing said to somebody else, with a high-ranking official in Beijing.

In addition, he seemed to have made more phone calls in the last few days. While the contents of the conversations remained largely inexplicable, Xing sounded anxious or even desperate, seemingly under extreme pressure.

Catherine then tried to listen to the phone records herself, but after a short while, she gave up. Xing spoke with a strong Fujian accent. She barely made out a fifth of the contents, which was further muddled by all the jargon thrown in.

But it might not be so obscure to Chief Inspector Chen, who had been working on the case, with access to lots of information unknown to her. He might be able to get some clues out of it, and to make a difference. She printed out the transcript. After a moment’s thought, she also copied the transcript onto a floppy and picked up a cassette tape of the phone calls.

She put everything in her bag. Rubbing her ankle, she was ready to go back to Washington University, where Chen would deliver his talk on “Eliot in China.”